Charity Workers
by Apologist
Summary: This story's a real quickie. Zidane and the crew have discovered that they have no reputation left. What to do? Volunteer at the first church of Cleyra, of course! It's gonna be a looooooong day for our favorite tree rats...


Rebuilding Cleyra  
  
By: Shurlee Meshow  
  
Zidane jumped backwards, the momentum and energy flowing through his veins. Then forward, backward, forward, backward, forward, an endless repetition of leaps and jumps, the sheer energy pulsing through his veins. Zidane trained endlessly, day and night just to beat this challenge. Then, he tripped. A savage rope dragged Zidane a short ways and then released him, cursing, into the dust. "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" He screamed his torment eternal. The training, the hours of time, wasted! He got up. The small girl said to him, "Too bad, come play with us again some time."  
  
Zidane walked, his head lowered, to his comrade, Vivi. "I have failed! I am worthless!" He cried. "Uhh," Vivi asked, "Aren't you overreacting a bit?" "I am an empty vessel." Zidane replied, "Look at them," Zidane said scornfully, pointing to the jump rope girls. One of the girls tripped over the rope and got up, saying, "Hah, two thousand! Beat that!" "Them, wallowing in their skill, their pointed oblivion to my sadness! Them! They, with their high records, they who torment me!" Vivi shook his head and said, "Actually, Zidane, you aren't that hard to beat. Your best record is fifteen," Zidane glared at him and said, "Shut up!"  
  
They met up with Steiner and Freya, who were facing Garnet and Amarant in Tetra Master at the bar. Amarant slammed his fist into the table, got up and ordered a drink. Garnet looked puzzlingly at the card table for a second, gasped in revelation and played a final card. Freya and Steiner swore in unison and handed over all their cards. "Another perfect for her!" Freya said, practically spitting, "I can't BELIEVE I lost the bet!" Garnet looked reprovingly, shaking her head and scolded Freya softly, "Now, now. You have to do it! You lost!" Freya cursed again and stepped onto the stage. "I'm a little teapot, short and stout." She started, doing the actions. Everybody in the bar laughed uproariously at her. She eyed Garnet like a snake, but Garnet was laughing too hard to see it. Meanwhile, Steiner was putting on a bright pink jumpsuit. "Do I have to do this?" He begged with Garnet. She nodded, laughing at Freya at the same time. Steiner stepped on stage in his jumpsuit with a microphone and did a few funky actions before he started singing, "I want some hot stuff baby this evening, I want some hot stuff baby tonight." Everybody laughed uproariously, throwing pointy objects at the two free entertainers. Garnet rolled around on the floor and laughed crazily, pounding the ground and shaking with mirth.  
  
Steiner got down, gave Freya a look and said, "Oh, you just had to see her ride naked through town on a Chocobo." "Well," Freya said, "I thought we could win. I can't believe she beat us with her uncle's set of OGLOP cards! Besides, you wanted to see Amarant pretend he was stalking Zidane." "That is not important!" Steiner cut in in his usual rude fashion, "What is important is renewing our reputations. After this stunt only Garnet has any reputation at all! Well, you especially after that escapade with that Dan Soldier fellow." Freya smacked Steiner over the face and said, "That means nothing! You can't prove it!" Steiner jumped in again, "Well, besides that, Amarant went on a drunken rampage; Zidane still can't skip that rope more than fifteen times after three months of practice; Vivi accidentally Demolished the castle with Meteor; Eiko recreated the Bahamut raid on Alexandria with Madeen; Mikoto became a doom prophet and started a riot; Kuja came so close to destroying Gaia; Beatrix started up a weight watchers program here; Lani sold fur coats for sixteen times the price plus she accidentally wiped out the whole residential district when she went into trance because somebody gave her too many pennies." Steiner let the obscenely long list trail off. "Point taken," Freya was getting impatient, "what are you saying?" Steiner called all his friends over for a meeting. "Well," Eiko suggested, "there's always genetic testing." Zidane kicked her in the shins, hissing "Not again!" and she shut up. "Well, then," Garnet said, "there's only one place left!" They all stared at her. "Uhh," Vivi said, "That was the last option," Garnet looked at him patronizingly and said, "Actually, you forgot the first church of Cleyra!" Zidane yelled, "What? Those weirdoes? They pray to a sandstorm for crying out loud!" Freya whipped out her sandstorm bible and smacked Zidane soundly about the head, then put it away. "Think about it!" Garnet said, "They're trying to rebuild Cleyra! It's perfect!" "Hold up," Amarant said, "I'm not doing charity!" Zidane gave him a sly look. "You sure about that, 'Flamer?'" He instantly started jumping up and down, screaming, "Look! It's the drunk guy who, AUUGHH!" Zidane met Amarant's fist. "Well, I guess I have no choice." Amarant sighed. "What are you talking about!?" Mikoto piped up, "You have plenty of choice!" Zidane and Garnet immediately shushed her, whispering, "The author wants to move the plot along, so just do it!" Mikoto snorted, "Why?" then, more rebelliously, "So, you good kiddies going to follow the big, mean author around while he." Immediately, Mikoto disappeared and then reappeared, wearing an ear-cap and a Packers T-shirt. A booming voice said, "You shall live out the rest of your miserable life as a raging Packers fan in Wisconsin, and what's worse, you shall like country music!" Suddenly a twenty-five-pound belt buckle appeared around Mikoto's waist, dragging her to the floor. Zidane looked to the sky, saying, "Please, spare her! This is too cruel a fate! Could you not just burn her to death or skin her alive with a rusty knife and roll her in salt?" The booming voice said, "Ha! She has been trying my patience for some time now!" Zidane looked to the sky, saying, "But that's impossible! You just started writing this!" Zidane disappeared and reappeared, wearing a bright violet feather boa and a multicolored Santa Claus hat. Zidane shrieked, screaming, "I don't even wanna know! I'm sorry!" He was instantly transferred back to his previous state. "Now, do my nefarious bidding! Go out and perform Charity work!" The thunderous voice commanded. Everyone was already gone.  
  
Meanwhile, the first church of Cleyra was having a little bit of a problem. "We have to revive the sandstorm, but those oafs with legs took the stupid crystal!" a rather unpleasant workman said. Just then, the Invincible pulled through, knocking over the half of Cleyra they had finished. "Uh oh," Zidane, who, incidentally, was driving, said, "this is gonna cost me."  
Upon their departure from the Invincible, angry Burmecians wielding pitchforks and torches thronged them. "Uhh," Zidane said weakly, "umm," then, thinking quickly, he pointed to Mikoto, screaming, "PACKERS FAN!!!" Immediately, the throng turned its attention to Mikoto. They bore her up and threw her into the ruins of Cleyra, forking her as she went by. As the dust settled, the Cleyrans whirled around, eyeing Zidane with utter hatred. Thinking quickly (for once) Zidane whipped out the desert star and tossed it at them. Eager hands snatched it up.  
Within moments, the sandstorm had regenerated. Slowly, the Invincible started moving, lifting off the ground. Garnet tapped Zidane on the shoulder. "You DID leave the anti-theft on, right?" Zidane scowled at her, "Yes, I did!" Then, looking up, "Oh CRAP! My Airship!" Zidane started running after it futilely, but it was already 90 meters above his head. He leapt a whole 2 feet after it, but his jumping was in vain. With a rush, the Invincible was thrown into the distant mountains and exploded in a fiery blast. Zidane cursed to the sky, "And I just got it waxed!" Garnet groaned, "Well, there goes the last party-switch point in existence! And right after we destroyed Memoria. Oh well. I'm sure Uncle Cid's next airship, the Hilda Garde 9,786,432, will include one."  
With a heavy sigh, Zidane turned around, only to realize that he was lifting slowly off the ground himself. He fumbled with his control panel, trying to put on the right support ability. Finally, in desperation, he just used the first one he saw. "Auto-Float!" He yelled emphatically. Realizing his mistake just milliseconds after it could have saved him, he cursed out loud as he was thrown ninety feet and whipped into the side of Cleyra's hollowed-out stump.  
  
(Massive Plot Hole)  
  
Zidane, recovered from the disastrous events and faced a charred, flooded stump that was once the proud state of Cleyra. After the four hurricanes, the Electric storm in which over sixty-five bolts of thunder hit the tree, and Reruns of Survivor on television the tree was no more than a little pile of saturated ash. Bored ash, at that. Just when all seemed like it couldn't possibly get worse, Zidane said, "How can this possibly get worse?"  
  
When the smoke cleared. (HUGE breath) The Cleyran Union went on strike, All the continents had rearranged to form the Likeness of Eddie Vedder, Pop had replaced every other form of music (You should hear the music in Gizmaluke's Grotto now! UGH! (Shudders violently)), Every Planet Aligned, Necron Grand Crossed the South Gate, causing a huge demand for workers that caused an imbalance in the economy, thus forcing every merchant in the world to become a hunter, causing then an imbalance in predator-prey relationships, throwing the ecosystem into a complete whirlwind, driving Microsoft stock down fourteen thousand points, sending the entire economy to heck in a hand basket, also forcing Squaresoft to remake Dragonwarrior and Dragonwarrior only, causing all gamers to lose interest. Amidst this, somehow, The Cleyra continent was forced into bitter Civil War. (Exhales explosively)  
  
Dressed up in a Ulysses Grant uniform, Zidane paraded ridiculously outside the tree, whirling Orichalcon (fun to use, more fun to pronounce! ) in a fierce spiral. "Give me Cleyra or give me Death!" He called to a crowd of imps, iron giants, goblins, orcs, and other nasty creatures. Their reply was loud and clear "DEATH!!" "And by the way," a tiny goblin said, "that was Patric Henry's quote, not Ulysses Grant!" He was mowed down in a huge rush to slaughter Zidane.  
  
Crying out in surprise, having expected Cleyra to be rebuilt by the mob of confederate monsters, Zidane ran back behind a huge wall that Eiko, using Shell, and Garnet, using Protect, were sustaining, with constant White Draws, Chakras and Ethers from the other members. Luckily, a mog with the mogshop ability was nearby, and there were lots of weak monsters nearby to slay for more money, so the Ethers weren't a problem.  
  
The huge wall was growing stronger by the moment, and the monsters couldn't penetrate it at all. Finally, all the Goblin Mages got together with the Scoundrels, and they first cast a collective Psych on the whole party, then stole all the money and items. Finally, they slew the Mog with a barrage of Goblin Punches. Thus, all support for the wall was demolished. But alas for their plan, Quina realized all the yummy, weak monsters were just sitting there, chuckling at their plan's success, so she cast vanish on herself and ate them all, one by one. However, the monsters by this time had offered a challenge. One summonner versus the other. For the protagonists (who always win anyways.) was Dagger. For the monseters was a summonner by the name of Enrique Holghmes. "Ark!" Dagger cried, holding the Pumice aloft. Ark swooped down out of the atmosphere and transformed itself into its robot form. "GW Team!" Enrique called out, holding five separate igneous rocks with nothing remotely special about them. All of a sudden, they were beautiful chunks of purest prism shards! Zooming down from the clouds, the Gundam Wing Zero transformed from its bird form to its robotic form. They both charged their huge guns and took aim at each other. Suddenly, Wing Zero split his gun in half and went into his signature spinning blast technique (Apparently, Quatre was piloting). Ark fired its gun way too late and blasted the ground just in front of Wing Zero at the exact moment that Zero's blasts hit it. Fortunately, Ark's cannon created a long cutscene, not to mention a huge dome effect visible from the moon. "A tie?!" Dagger yelled irately, "that's not supposed to happen! EIDOLON WAR!!!" Dagger pulled out the Amethyst, Dark Matter, Topaz, Opal, Peridot, Aquamarine and, of course, the Garnet, and unleashed every summon in the book. Eiko soon followed up with Fenrir, Carbunkle, Phoenix and Madeen, creating a Hell on Gaia that even the remaining four gundams combined with Vayate and Mercurius couldn't stop! Reinforcements from G-Force and Voltron entered, and a huge crossover war of massive proportions shook the foundations of Gaia to the very core. Finally, the author stepped in and thrashed all and sundry with horrendous plot holes until all of the Final Fantasy universe was slam-dunked into a black hole by an Elvis impersonator who was, at the time, impersonating Kefka, laughing evilly and equipping his Economizer/Gem Box combo. Of course, the author intervened, and (listening to Rush all the way!) returned things to more or less normal, except that Milwaukee, Wisconsin was now called Lamia, Wisconsin.  
  
(MASSIVE PLOT HOLE #2)  
  
Zidane got up, feeling woozy. The Tilt-A-Whirl hadn't helped.  
"HOLD UP!!" "I'm the author, here!" a massive voice screamed, "who said that you got a Tilt-A-Whirl?!"  
"Oh, come on!" Zidane said furiously, "at least let us keep the Tilt-A-Whirl. Whole darn story's just a torturous deathtrap, might as well make the transition full of headaches and vomit."  
"Hmmm. Headaches and vomit, huh? Well, as long as you're not having fun."  
  
(MASSIVE PLOT HOLE #3)  
  
Garnet looked out over their neat work. It was Cleyra, with all of it's waterfalls and rope bridges. It was perfect, absolutely perfect. She put the model away and looked at the stump with four cardboard boxes stacked on top. She sighed. If a Cleyran was still alive by the time this was over, she was sure they would be happy to return home.  
  
Zidane, meanwhile, was "supervising" work on a scaffolding, because it was the only job that he couldn't possibly destroy anything in. The workers didn't need supervision, so Zidane amused himself peeing off of walls and stealing supplies and such.  
  
Eiko, having gotten over Zidane, was working on the sixty-fifth draft of a love letter to Jonathan Taylor Thomas.  
  
Freya was helping a huge gaggle of former Cleyrans build a massive scaffolding. That worthless twerp Zidane was supposed to be supervising! Instead, Freya had to do both the building and the supervision.  
  
Amarant sat with Vivi. They were supposed to be protecting the workers from monsters, but there were none for miles. So they sat there and stared at each other. Waiting to see who would blink first.  
  
Quina was attempting to hang herself upside-down by the ankles until her neck fell asleep.  
  
Steiner was attempting to whittle a tiny, detailed Alexander from a one-cubic-inch block of wood. with the Ragnarok.  
  
Lani was attempting to sell Fur Coats to the Burmecians.  
  
Mikoto was preaching the end of Gaia to a crowd of youngsters.  
  
Kuja was trying to get himself to Trance by listening to Mikoto's service.  
  
Yeah, it was an eventful day.  
  
The next day, the scaffolding was put up. Finally, they had taken the first step! Next (under Zidane's careful "supervision"), the treetop went up. Following were the branches. Finally, the furnishings were done! Cleyra was up! BOOYA! And it only took 3 years, too.  
  
And then Amarant blinked and lost to Vivi.  
  
And so, the group went back home, to Alexandria.  
  
Zidane jumped backwards, the momentum and energy flowing through his veins. Then forward, backward, forward, backward, forwards, an endless repetition of leaps and jumps, the sheer energy pulsing through his veins. Zidane trained endlessly, day and night just to beat this challenge. Then, he tripped. A savage rope dragged Zidane a short ways and then released him, cursing, into the dust. "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" He screamed his torment eternal. The training, the hours of time, wasted! He got up. The small girl said to him, "Too bad, come play with us again some time."  
  
Here we go again.  
  
Fin.  
  
Join the ever-daring adventures of the FFIX team in my next mini-fic: "I  
Can Explain Everything. Sort Of."  
  
In this wonderful fic, Zidane gets pulled over by the Lindblum Air Police.  
They find that he has broken almost every ordinance in Lindblum's book, and are forced to impound the Invincible. Kuja learns of this, however,  
and he and Zidane decide that it's revenge time.  
  
Oh, and don't miss my full sized Fic, "The Day a Ton of Bad Stuff  
Happened," coming as soon as I get around to it. 


End file.
